'Extreme Makeover' house faces foreclosure
LAKE CITY, Ga. — More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.
After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it's set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.
The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC's "Extreme Makeover" demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.
The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighborhood. The home's door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.
Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes' employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple's three children and a home maintenance fund.
ABC said in a statement that it advises each family to consult a financial planner after they get their new home. "Ultimately, financial matters are personal, and we work to respect the privacy of the families," the network said.
Some of the volunteers who helped build the home were less than thrilled about the family's financial decisions.
"It's aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it," Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt, who helped vault a massive beam into place in the Harper's living room, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com
At first I thought that this was very sad and it is but... How did they get into this situation? You have a great house, money for the home's maintenance and scholarships for your children. So what do you do? You get greedy, of course. These people paid off their mortgage and did all of this for them and still they want more. So they take out a loan against that home and lose it all. That is bad enough but the thing that really got me was this woman's attitude. I read some other news articles in which she had made statements like this: “What’s going to happen is instead of keep paying my mortgage, I’m going to take my money and not pay my mortgage because I’m being harassed,” and this "If you want proof if the foreclosure is off or not, show up at the courthouse next month to watch it not happen". Can you imagine? I would be apologizing and trying to explain myself but NO she just cops an attitude. These people should have been so grateful for what they were given but just like so many others anymore it seems they feel that someone owes them something more.
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